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Course of Study:
EN53362A
Title:
The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader
Author:
Deborah Cameron (ed)
Publisher:
Routledge
Designated Person authorising scanning:
Rebecca Randall
Robin Lakoff
EXTRACT
FROM
WOMAN'S
PLACE
LANGUAGE
AND
F A LITTLE
GIRL
'TALKS
ROUGH'
like a boy, she will normally be
ostracized, scolded, or made fun of. In this way society, in the form of a
child's parents and friends, keeps her in line, in her place. This socializing
process is, in most of its aspects, harmless and often necessary, but in this
particular instance - the teaching of special linguistic uses to little girls - it
raises serious problems, though the teachers may well be unaware of this. If
the little girl learns her lesson well, she is not rewarded with unquestioned
acceptance on the part of society; rather, the acquisition of this special style
of speech will later be an excuse others use to keep her in a demeaning position, to refuse to take her seriously as a human being. Because of the way
she speaks, the little girl - now grown to womanhood - will be accused of
being unable to speak precisely or to express herself forcefully.
I am sure that the preceding paragraph contains an oversimplified description of the language-learning process in American society. Rather than saying
that little boys and little girls, from the very start, learn two different ways
of speaking, I think, from observation and reports by others, that the process
is more complicated. Since the mother and other women are the dominant
influences in the lives of most children under the age of 5, probably both
boys and girls first learn 'women's language' as their first language. (I am
told that in Japanese, children of both sexes use the particles proper for
women until the age of 5 or so; then the little boy starts to be ridiculed if
he uses them, and so soon learns to desist.) As they grow older, boys especially go through a stage of rough talk, as described by Spock and others;
this is probably discouraged in little girls more strongly than in little boys,
I
in whom parents may often find it more amusing than shocking. By the time
children are
or so, and split up into same-sex peer groups, the two
languages are already present, according to my recollections and observations. But it seems that what has happened is that the boys have unlearned
their original form of expression and adopted new forms of expression, while
the girls retain their old ways of speech. (One wonders whether this is related
in any way to the often-noticed fact that little boys innovate, in their play,
much more than little girls.) The ultimate result is the same, of course, whatever the interpretation.
So a girl is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. If she refuses to
talk like a lady, she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as unfeminine; if
she does learn, she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part
in a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two
choices which a woman has - to be less than a woman or less than a person
- are highly painful.
An objection may be raised here that I am overstating the case against
women's language, since most women who get as far as college learn to
switch from women's to neutral language under appropriate situations (in
class, talking to professors, at job interviews, and such). But I think this
objection overlooks a number of problems. First, if a girl must learn two
dialects, she becomes in effect a bilingual. like many bilinguals, she may
never really be master of either language, though her command of both is
adequate enough for most purposes, she may never feel really comfortable
using either, and never be certain that she is using the right one in the right
place to the right person. Shifting from one language to another requires
special awareness to the nuances of social situations, special alertness to
possible disapproval. It may be that the extra energy that must be (subconsciously or otherwise) expended in this game is energy sapped from more
creative work, and hinders women from expressing themselves as well, as
fully, or as freely as they might otherwise. Thus, if a girl knows that a
professor will be receptive to comments that sound scholarly, objective,
unemotional, she will of course be tempted to use neutral language in class
or in conference. But if she knows that, as a man, he will respond more
approvingly to her at other levels if she uses women's language, and sounds
frilly and feminine, won't she be confused as well as sorely tempted in two
directions at once? It is often noticed that women participate less in class
discussion than men - perhaps this linguistic indecisiveness is one reaSon why.
(Incidentally, I don't find this true in my classes.)
It will be found that the overall effect of 'women's language' - meaning
both language restricted in use to women and language descriptive of women
alone - is this: it submerges a woman's personal identity, by denying her
the means of expressing herself strongly, on the one hand, and encouraging
expressions that suggest triviality in subject matter and uncertainty about it;
and, when a woman is being discussed, by treating her as an object - sexual
or otherwise - but never a serious person with individual views. Of course,
to
other forms of behaviour in this society have the same purpose; but the
phenomena seem especially clear linguistically.
The ultimate effect of these discrepancies is that women are systematically denied access to power, on the grounds that they are not capable of
holding it as demonstrated by their linguistic behaviour along with other
aspects of their behaviour; and the irony here is that women are made to
feel that they deserve such treatment, because of inadequacies in their own
intelligence and/or education. But in fact it is precisely because women have
learned their lessons so well that they later suffer such discrimination. (This
situation is of course true to some extent for all disadvantaged groups: white
males of Anglo-Saxon descent set the standards and seem to expect other
groups to be respectful of them but not to adopt them - they are to 'keep
in their place'.)
'Women's language' shows up in all levels of the grammar of English. We
find differences in the choice and frequency of lexical items; in the situations
in which certain syntactic rules are performed; in intonational and other
supersegmental patterns. As an example of lexical differences, imagine a man
and a woman both looking at the same wall, painted a pinkish shade of purple.
The woman may say (1):
with no one consequently forming any special impression of her as a result
of the words alone; but if the man should say (1), one might well conclude
he was imitating a woman sarcastically, or was a homosexual, or an interior
decorator. Women, then, make far more precise discriminations in naming
colours than do men; words like beine, ecru, aquamarine, lavender, and so on
are unremarkable in a woman's active vocabulary, but absent from that of
most men. I have seen a man helpless with suppressed laughter at a discussion between two other people as to whether a book jacket was to be
described as 'lavender' or 'mauve'. Men find such discussion amusing because
they consider such a question trivial, irrelevant to the real world.
We might ask why fine discrimination of colour is relevant for women,
but not for men. A clue is contained in the way many men in our society
view other 'unwordly' topics, such as high culture and the church, as outside
the world of men's work, relegated to women and men whose masculinity
is not unquestionable. Men tend to relegate to women things that are not
of concern to them, or do not involve their egos. Among these are problems of fine colour discrimination. We might rephrase this point by saying
that since women are not expected to make decisions on important
matters, such as what kind of job to hold, they are relegated the non-crucial
decisions as a sop. Deciding whether to name a colour 'lavender' or 'mauve'
is one such sop.
If it is agreed that this lexical disparity reflects a social inequity in the
position of women, one may ask how to remedy it. Obviously, no one could
seriously recommend legislating against the use of the terms 'mauve' and
'lavender' by women, or forcing men to learn to use them. All we can do
is give women the opportunity to participate in the real decisions of life.
Aside from specific lexical items like colour names, we find differences
between the speech of women and that of men in the use of particles that
grammarians often describe as 'meaningless'. There may be no referent for
them, but they are far from meaningless: they define the social context of
an utterance, indicate the relationship the speaker feels between himself and
his addressee, between himself and what he is talking about.
As an experiment, one might present native speakers of standard
American English with pairs of sentences, identical syntactically and in terms
of referential lexical items, and differing merely in the choice of 'meaningless' particle, and ask them which was spoken by a man, which a woman.
Consider:
2 a Oh dear, you've put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.
b Shit, you've put the peanut butter in the refrigerator again.
It is safe to predict that people would classify the first sentence as part
of 'women's language', the second as 'men's language'. It is true that many
self-respecting women are becoming able to use sentences like (2)b publicly
without flinching, but this is a relatively recent development, and while
perhaps the majority of Middle America might condone the use of b for men,
they would still disapprove of its use by women. (It is of interest, by the
way, to note that men's language is increasingly being used by women, but
women's language is not being adopted by men, apart from those who reject
the American masculine image (for example, homosexuals). This is analogous to the fact that men's jobs are being sought by women, but few men
are rushing to become housewives or secretaries. The language of the favoured
group, the group that holds the power, along with its non-linguistic behaviour, is generally adopted by the other group, not vice versa. In any event,
it is a truism to state that the 'stronger' expletives are reserved for men,
and the 'weaker' ones for women.)
Now we may ask what we mean by 'stronger' and 'weaker' expletives.
(If these particles were indeed meaningless, none would be stronger than
any other.) The difference between using 'shit' (or 'damn', or one of many
others) as opposed to 'oh dear', or 'goodness', or 'oh fudge' lies in how
forcefully one says how one feels - perhaps, one might say, choice of particle
is a function of how strongly one allows oneself to feel about something,
. so that the strength of an emotion conveyed in a sentence corresponds to
the strength of the particle. Hence in a really serious situation, the use of
'trivializing' (that is, 'women's') particles constitutes a joke, or at any
rate is highly inappropriate. (In conformity with current linguistic practice,
throughout this work an (*) will be used to mark a sentence that is inappropriate in some sense, either because it is syntactically deviant or used in
the wrong social context.)
3 a *Oh fudge, my hair is on fire.
b *Dear me, did he kidnap the baby?
As children, women are encouraged to be 'little ladies'. Little ladies
don't scream as vociferously as little boys, and they are chastised more
severely for throwing tantrums or showing temper: 'high spirits' are expected
and therefore tolerated in little boys; docility and resignation are the corresponding traits expected of little girls. Now, we tend to excuse a show of
temper by a man where we would not excuse an identical tirade from
a woman: women are allowed to fuss and complain, but only a man can
bellow in rage. It is sometimes claimed that there is a biological basis for
this behaviour difference, though I don't believe conclusive evidence exists
that the early differences in behaviour that have been observed are not
the result of very different treatment of babies of the two sexes from the
beginning; but surely the use of different particles by men and women is a
learned trait, merely mirroring non-linguistic differences again, and again
pointing out an inequity that exists between the treatment of men, and
society's expectations of them, and the treatment of women. Allowing men
stronger means of expression than are open to women further reinforces
men's position of strength in the real world: for surely we listen with more
attention the more strongly and forcefully someone expresses opinions, and
a speaker unable - for whatever reason - to be forceful in stating his views
is much less likely to be taken seriously. Ability to use strong particles
like 'shit' and 'hell' is, of course, only incidental to the inequity that exists
rather than its cause. But once again, apparently accidental linguistic usage
suggests that women are denied equality partially for linguistic reasons,
and that an examination of language points up precisely an area in which
inequity exists. Further, if someone is allowed to show emotions, and consequently does, others may well be able to view him as a real individual in his
own right, as they could not if he never showed emotion. Here again, then,
the behaviour a woman learns as 'correct' prevents her from being taken
seriously as an individual, and further is considered 'correct' and necessary
for a woman precisely because society does not consider her seriously as
an individual.
Similar sorts of disparities exist elsewhere in the vocabulary. There
is, for instance, a group of adjectives which have, besides their specific and
literal meanings, another use, that of indicating the speaker's approbation or
admiration for something. Some of these adjectives are neutral as to sex of
speaker: either men or women may use them. But another set seems, in its
figurative use, to be largely confined to women's speech. Representative lists
of both types are below:
neutral
women only
great
terrific
cool
neat
adorable
charming
sweet
lovely
divine
As with the colour words and swear words already discussed, for a man
to stray into the 'women's' column is apt to be damaging to his reputation,
though here a woman may freely use the neutral words. But it should not
be inferred from this that a woman's use of the 'women's' words is without
its risks. Where a woman has a choice between the neutral words and the
women's words, as a man has not, she may be suggesting very different
things about her own personality and her view of the subject matter by her
choice of words of the first set or words of the second.
4 a What a terrific ideal
b What
divine ideal
a
It seems to me that a might be used under any appropriate conditions by a
female speaker. But b is more restricted. probably it is used appropriately
(even by the sort of speaker for whom it was normal) only in case the speaker
feels the idea referred to to be essentially frivolous, trivial, or unimportant
to the world at large - only an amusement for the speaker herself. Consider,
then, a woman advertising executive at an advertising conference. However
feminine an advertising executive she is, she is much more likely to express
her approval with (4)a than with b, which might cause raised eyebrows, and
the reaction: 'That's what we get for putting a woman in charge of this
company.'
On the other hand, suppose a friend suggests to the same woman that
she should dye her French poodles to match her cigarette ligh~er. In this
case, the suggestion really concerns only her, and the impression she will
make on people. In this case, she may use b, from the 'women's language'.
So the choice is not really free: words restricted to 'women's language'
suggest that concepts to which they are applied are not relevant to the real
world of (male) influence and power.
One may ask whether there really are no analogous terms that are
available to men - terms that denote approval of the trivial, the personal;
that express approbation in terms of one's own personal emotional reaction,
rather than by gauging the likely general reaction. There does in fact seem
to be one such word: it is the hippie invention 'groovy', which seems to
have most of the connotations that separate 'lovely' and 'divine' from 'great'
and 'terrific' excepting only that it does not mark the speaker as feminine
or effeminate.
5 a What a terrific steel milll
b *What a lovely steel milll (male speaking)
c What a groovy steel mill!
I think it is significant that this word was introduced by the hippies, and,
when used seriously rather than sarcastically, used principally by people who
have accepted the hippies' values. Principal among these is the denial of the
Protestant work ethic: to a hippie, something can be worth thinking about
even if it isn't influential in the power structure, or money-making. Hippies
are separated from the activities of the real world just as women are - though
in the former case it is due to a decision on their parts, while this is not
uncontroversially true in the case of women. For both these groups, it is
possible to express approval of things in a personal way - though one does
so at the risk of losing one's credibility with members of the power structure. It is also true, according to some speakers, that upper-class British men
may use the words listed in the 'women's' column, as well as the specific
colour words and others we have categorized as specifically feminine, without
raising doubts as to their masculinity among other speakers of the same
dialect. (This is not true for lower-class Britons, however.) The reason may
be that commitment to the work ethic need not necessarily be displayed:
one may be or appear to be a gentleman of leisure, interested in various
pursuits, but not involved in mundane (business or political) affairs, in such
a culture, without incurring disgrace. This is rather analogous to the position of a woman in American middle-class society, so we should not be
surprised if these special lexical items are usable by both groups. This fact
points indeed to a more general conclusion. These words aren't, basically,
'feminine'; rather, they signal 'uninvolved', or 'out of power'. Any group
in a society to which these labels are applicable may presumably use these
words; they are often considered 'feminine', 'unmasculine', because women
are the 'uninvolved', 'out of power' group par excellence.
Another group that has, ostensibly at least, taken itself out of the search
for power and money is that of academic men. They are frequently viewed
by other groups as analogous in some ways to women - they don't really
work, they are supported in their frivolous pursuits by others, what they do
doesn't really count in the real world, and so on. The suburban home finds
its counterpart in the ivory tower: one is supposedly shielded from harsh
realities in both. Therefore it is not too surprising that many academic men
(especially those who emulate British norms) may violate many of these sacrosanct rules I have just laid down: they often use 'women's language'. Among
themselves, this does not occasion ridicule. But to a truck driver, a professor
saying 'What a lovely hat!' is undoubtedly laughable, all the more so as it
reinforces his stereotype of professors as effete snobs.
When we leave the lexicon and venture into syntax, we find that syntactically too women's speech is Pc::..c:1:1.!il1r.
To my knowledge, there is no syntactic
rule In English that only women may use. But there is at least one rule that
a woman will use in more conversational situations than a man. (This fact
indicates, of course, that the applicability of syntactic rules is governed partly
by social context - the position in society of the speaker and addressee, with
respect to each other, and the impression one seeks to make on the other.)
This is the rule of tag-question formation. I
A tag, in its usage as well as its syntactic shape (in English) is midway
between an outright statement and a yes--no question: it is less assertive than
the former, but more confident than the latter. Therefore it is usable under
certain contextual situations: not those in which a statement would be appropriate, nor those in which a yes-no question is generally used, but in situations
intermediate between these.
One makes a statement when one has confidence in his knowledge and
is pretty certain that his statement will be believed; one asks a question when
one lacks knowledge on some point and has reason to believe that this gap
can and will be remedied by an answer by the addressee. A tag question,
being intermediate between these, is used when the speaker is stating a claim,
but lacks full confidence in the truth of that claim. So if I say
I will probably not be surprised if my respondent
say
answers 'no';
but if I
instead, chances are I am already biased in favour of a positive answer, wanting
only confirmation by the addressee. I still want a response from him, as I
do with a yes--no question; but I have enough knowledge (or think I have)
to predict that response, much as with a declarative statement. A tag question, then, might be thought of as a declarative statement without the
assumption that the statement is to be believed by the addressee: one has an
out, as with a question. A tag gives the addressee leeway, not forcing him
to go along with the views of the speaker.
There are situations in which a tag is legitimate, in fact the only legitimate sentence form. So, for example, if I have seen something only
indistinctly, and have reason to believe my addressee had a better view, I
can say:
Sometimes we find a tag question used in cases in which the speaker
knows as well as the addressee what the answer must be, and doesn't need
confirmation. One such situation is when the speaker is making 'small talk',
trying to elicit conversation from the addressee:
In discussing personal feelings or opinions, only the speaker normally
has any way of knowing the correct answer. Strictly speaking, questioning
one's own opinions is futile. Sentences like (10) are usually ridiculous.
But similar cases do, apparently, exist, in which it is the speaker's opinions,
rather than perceptions, for which corroboration is sought, as in (11):
While there are of course other possible interpretations of a sentence
like this, one possibility is that the speaker has a particular answer in mind
- 'yes' or 'no' - but is reluctant to state it baldly. It is my impression,
though I do not have precise statistical evidence, that this sort of tag question is much more apt to be used by women than by men. If this is indeed
true, why is it true?
These sentence types provide a means whereby a speaker can avoid
committing himself, and thereby avoid coming into conflict with the addressee.
The problem is that, by so doing, a speaker may also give the impression of
not being really sure of himself, of looking to the addressee for confirmation,
even of having no views of his own. This last criticism is, of course, one often
levelled at women. One wonders how much of it reflects a use of language
that has been imposed on women from their earliest years.
Related to this special use of a syntactic rule is a widespread difference
perceptible in women's intonational pattems.2 There is a peculiar sentence
intonation pattem, found in English as far as I know only among women, which
has the form of a declarative answer to a question, and is used as such, but has
the rising inflection typical of a yes-no question, as well as being especially hesitant. The effect is as though one were seeking confirmation, though at the same
time the speaker may be the only one who has the requisite information.
12
a When will dinner be ready?
b Oh ...
around six o'clock ...
?
It is as though b were saying, 'Six 0' clock, if that's OK with you, if agree.' a is
put in the position of having to provide confirmation, and b sounds unsure. Here
we find unwillingness to assert an opinion carried to an extreme. One likely
consequence is that these sorts of speech patterns are taken to reflect something
real about character and playa part in not taking a woman seriously or trusting
her with any real responsibilities, since 'she can't make up her mind' and 'isn't
sure of herself . And here again we see that people form judgements about other
people on the basis of superficial linguistic behaviour that may have nothing to
do with inner character, but has been imposed upon the speaker, on pain of
worse punishment than not being taken seriously.
Such features are probably part of the general fact that women's speech
sounds much more 'polite' than men's. One aspect of politeness is as we have
just described: leaving a decision open, not imposing your mind, or views, or
claims on anyone else. Thus a tag question is a kind of polite statement, in that
it does not force agreement or belief on the addressee. A request may be in the
same sense a polite command, in that it does not overtly require obedience, but
rather suggests something be done as a favour to the speaker. An overt order
(as in an imperative) expresses the (often impolite) assumption of the speaker's
superior position to the addressee, carrying with it the right to enforce compliance, whereas with a request the decision on the face of it is left up to the
addressee. (The same is true of suggestions: here, the implication is not that the
addressee is in danger if he does not comply - merely that he will be glad if he
does. Once again, the decision is up to the addressee, and a suggestion therefore is politer than an order.) The more particles in a sentence that reinforce
the notion that it is a request, rather than an order, the politer the result. The
sentences of 13 illustrate these points: (13)a is a direct order, band c simple
requests, and d and e compound requests.
13 a Close the door.
b Please close the door.
c Will you close the door?
d Will you please close the door?
e Won't you close the door?
Let me first explain why e has been classified as a compound request.
(A sentence like Won't you please close the door would then count as a doubly
compound request.) A sentence like (13)c is close in sense to 'Are you willing
to close the door?' According to the normal rules of polite conversation, to
agree that you are willing is to agree to do the thing asked of you. Hence
. this apparent enquiry functions as a request, leaving the decision up to the
willingness of the addressee. Phrasing it as a positive question makes the
(implicit) assumption that a 'yes' answer will be forthcoming. Sentence (13)d
is more polite than b or c because it combines them: please indicating that to
accede will be to do something for the speaker, and will you, as noted,
suggesting that the addressee has the final decision. If, now, the question is
phrased with a negative, as in (13)e, the speaker seems to suggest the stronger
likelihood of a negative response from the addressee. Since the assumption
is then that the addressee is that much freer to refuse, (13)e acts as a more
polite request than (13)c or d: c and d put the burden of refusal on the
addressee, as e does not.
Given these facts, one can see the connection between tag questions and
tag orders and other requests. In all these cases, the speaker is not committed
as with a simple declarative or affirmative. And the more one compounds a
request, the more characteristic it is of women's speech, the less of men's.
A sentence that begins Won't you please (without special emphasis on please)
. seems to me at least to have a distinctly unmasculine sound. Uttle girls are
indeed taught to talk like little ladies, in that their speech is in many ways
more polite than that of boys or men, and the reason for this is that politeness involves an absence of a strong statement, and women's speech is devised
to prevent the expression of strong statements.
Within the lexicon itself, there seems to be a parallel phenomenon to tagquestion usage, which I refrain from discussing in the body of the text
because the facts are controversial and I do not understand them fully.
The intensive so, used where purists would insist upon an absolute superlative, heavily stressed, seems more characteristic of women's language than
of men's, though it is found in the latter, particularly in the speech of
male academics. Consider, for instance, the follOwing sentences:
a I feel so unhappy!
b That movie made me so sick!
Men seem to have the least difficulty using this construction when the
sentence is unemotional, or non-subjective - without reference to the
speaker himself:
c That sunset is so beautifull
d Fred is so dumb!
2
Substituting an equative like so for absolute superlatives (like very, really,
utterly) seems to be a way of backing out of committing oneself strongly
to an opinion, rather like tag questions (ef. discussion on p. 250). One
might hedge in this way with perfect right in making aesthetic judgements,
as in c, or intellectual judgements, as in d. But it is somewhat odd to
hedge in' describing one's own mental or emotional state: who, after all,
is qualified to contradict one on this? To hedge in this situation is to seek
to avoid making any strong statement: a characteristic, as we have noted
already and shall note further, of women's speech.
For analogues outside of English to these uses of tag questions and special
intonation patterns, see my discussion of Japanese particles (LakofT 1972).
It is to be expected that similar cases will be found in many other languages
as well. See, for example, Haas 1964.
Reprinted from Robin Lakoff, Language and Woman's Place (New York: Harper & Row,
1975).